I think of Tharizdun as the final boss of D&D. I suspect Gygax felt similarly. He's entropy incarnate, an avatar of the cold end of all things. He's sealed away (4e made this very explicit in the now dubiously canon Dawn War), and his cultists long to undo his bonds. pic.twitter.com/NYZoD6GceF
— James 🌺 Haeck (@jamesjhaeck) April 12, 2019
Interestingly, Tharizdun has only ever been a side note in my campaigns. I had a whole cult worship, including a twisted Holy Slayer society with soul-eating weapons and idol-worship of spheres of annihilation in my Al-Qadim campaign, but he stayed margin notes.
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 12, 2019
I think the margins is exactly where he belongs… until the time is right. A quiet, slow death, biding its time. He has eternity to wait, after all. He’s apparently biding his time to matter in my games. Some day I’ll break out the “Fangs of Om-Tai” slayers, but for now they wait as idea buried in an old notebook.
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 12, 2019
While I’ve been aware of Tharizdun since I had the old World of Greyhawk boxed set & read Artifact of Evil, I’ve never been a big fan of cross populating him to other worlds beyond Greyhawk. “Tharizdun is the big nothingness that is bigger than the local nothingness of Shar.” I liked the idea of him in my Al-Qadim (which to be fair I don't even think of as Forgotten Realms)
"Shar who?"
"An ajami local god of darkness, I believe."
"Ah, I see. Do they not know of Brave Hajama?"
"Of course not, why would they?" *shrug*
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 12, 2019
He's a cool nihilistic foil to the cold gods of the elements, and fits a fun mythological niche as the tangle in the tapestry of Fate that was cut away. Tharizdun (or Om-Tai as they know him) is the void left behind when the tangle was excised.
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 12, 2019
